connectivity study in Southern California to determine size, location of wildland needed to keep bobcats, coyotes and other fauna healthy and at long term sustainable population levels

Impacts of Human Activity and Development on Behavior, Genetics, Disease and Mortality on Bobcats and other Carnivores

1. Project Home
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 USGS Contact For This Project

Erin Boydston
eboydston@usgs.gov
(805) 370-2362              (805) 370-2362      Santa Monica Mountains Field Station
401 West Hillcrest Drive
Thousand Oaks, CA 91360
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Habitat fragmentation is one of the principle threats to biodiversity, and in developing landscapes, urbanization is a leading agent of fragmentation and primary cause of species endangerment. Such is the case in coastal southern California, one of the largest megalopolitan regions in North America where the dramatic growth of human populations and resulting sprawl has severely fragmented native habitat in this biodiversity hotspot.

Connectivity, the degree of movement of organisms or processes among habitat patches (Taylor et al. 1993), is essential to maintaining the ecological integrity across fragmented areas by allowing for movement and dispersal of wildlife. Such animal movements may be critical to facilitate the exchange of genetic material among otherwise isolated populations, and maintaining functional levels of connectivity may be essential to allow natural range shifts in response to short and long-term environmental transitions, such as fires and global climate change. The preservation of functional levels of connectivity undoubtedly lends strength to efforts to protect wildlife, their habitats, and the ecosystem services they provide.

Mammalian carnivores can be effective focal species to evaluate the degree of landscape-level connectivity, or fragmentation, in a region. Large carnivores are particularly vulnerable to extinction in fragmented habitat because of wide ranges and resource requirements, low densities, slow population growth rates, and direct persecution by humans (Noss et al. 1996, Woodroffe and Ginsberg 1998, Crooks 2000, 2002).

Consequently, top predators may not be able to persist in landscapes that are not connected by functional movement corridors. Further, their disappearance may generate cascades that ripple down the food web. In fragmented habitat in San Diego, Crooks and Soulé (1999) demonstrated that the extirpation of dominant predators such as coyotes (Canis latrans) can result in the ecological release of smaller predators and increased extinction rates of their avian prey. Thus, top predators may function as keystone species - animals whose disappearance causes the increase in some species and the decline and extinction of others (Mills et al. 1993).

Carnivores therefore are ecologically pivotal organisms whose status can be indicative of the functional connectivity of ecosystems. Using mammalian carnivores in conservation planning adds a critical layer of conservation strategy that may provide a robust method for protecting other species with less demanding needs.

 Bobcats (Lynx rufus) are an excellent focal species to evaluate connectivity. They are less sensitive to fragmentation than larger felids and are thus valuable indicators of connectivity at local (finer) spatial scales and intermediate levels of fragmentation and urbanization. They have relatively large home ranges and can disperse long distances. Bobcats can persist in habitat fragments, but only those that have adequate connections to larger natural areas.

 Coyotes can also serve as good indicators of connectivity and are a good choice of focal species, because certain populations are vulnerable to localized extinction in habitat fragments that are too small, disturbed, or isolated. Thus, habitat connectivity appears to be the key to the persistence of these species and their associated biodiversity.

Due to the threat that habitat fragmentation poses to natural environments, connectivity conservation is increasingly becoming incorporated into land-management plans worldwide. Here we are studying the movements and dispersal behavior of carnivores, with a primary focus on bobcats, to evaluate functional connectivity in southern California and provide information to managers to help sustain carnivore populations across fragmented reserves.

Project Details

We are continuing examinations of over ten years of carnivore monitoring data from five contiguous counties in southern California, with a focus on how urbanization across this region has influenced the distribution and movement ecology of bobcats. In FY10, we will add to this regional dataset from a related project that will double the total number of data records.

Recent findings of our research on bobcats have identified vehicle strikes as a major source of mortality and that notoedric mange, which may be linked to rodenticide exposure, is an emerging threat. -USE GLUE TRAPS TO KILL MICE IN YOUR HOME, NOT RODENTICIDES THAT BOBCATS AND COYOTES AND HAWKS DIE FROM WHEN EATING POISONED RODENTS--BLOGGER RICK

 Thus we are continuing examinations of bobcat health and mortality. Specifically we will continue recording and collecting bobcats killed on roads, examining the characteristics of the locations, and conducting necropsies of carcasses.  We will also continue other disease surveys, with a focus on FIV in collaboration with Colorado State University.

We continue examining internal connectivity within lands managed by the Irvine Ranch Conservancy and other land management groups.  We are using previously collected data on bobcats to determine locations where bobcats might be particularly susceptible to mortality from vehicle strikes and where there are natural corridors.  After identifying these important locations, we will conduct detailed field surveys of the roadways and potential corridors to identify characteristics influencing bobcat movement patterns and mortality.

Finally, we are examining our 10 years of camera trap surveys in Orange County to identify longer-term trends in bobcat population health and distribution patterns with respect to urbanization.  We will conduct a meta-analysis of GPS-telemetry data collected on bobcats since 2002 to study how fragmentation at varying scales impacts their activity patterns, space utilization, and genetic relatedness.  These analyses should help identify factors contributing to the decline of bobcats in fragmented areas.

  In one analysis, we will compare the movement rates of bobcats to determine if the same environmental characteristics, such as temperature and moonlight, that seem to influence bobcat activity levels in relatively pristine areas also operate in areas where bobcats live in smaller habitat patches that are closer to urbanized areas. 

 In another analysis, we will examine whether genetic patterns seen at coarse scales, where bobcats in a more fragmented and isolated area exhibited higher levels of inbreeding than those in a more in-tact area, are found at local scales.

  Specifically, we will examine whether bobcats living closer together have higher levels of relatedness than those that are farther apart, and whether dispersal appear to be inhibited by fragmentation and the hazards of crossing through an urban environment.

MORE DATA REVEALS THAT 35 TO 50% WOLF CULLS STARTS WOLF POPULATIONS ON A DOWNWARD SLIPPERY SLOPE

Scientists: Wolf Hunts More Deadly Than Previously Thought

by Virginia Morell on 29 September 2010, 8:00 PM

A policy to sustainably manage gray wolves via recreational hunting appears to rely on faulty ecological science, says a new paper published today in PLoS ONE. The paper challenges a long-held assumption that gray wolf populations won't be decimated by hunting and predator-control programs. It has been believed up till now that such efforts can remove as many as 28% to 50% of the animals in a population without causing long-term harm to their numbers.
The paper comes on the heels of last year's first gray wolf hunting seasons in Montana and Idaho. (Wolves are disliked because they eat elk and livestock.) Hunters killed 260 wolves, close to 20% of the two states' wolf populations, including members of one of Yellowstone National Park's research packs. Combined with wolves harvested through predator-control programs, some 37.1% of the wolves in Idaho and Montana were eliminated in 2009. Can the recovering wolf populations, which were removed from the protection of the Endangered Species Act in 2008, be killed at this rate? Although the hunting season for this year has been canceled following a recent court ruling to reinstate the wolves on the federal endangered species list, the question remains important, say Scott Creel and Jay Rotella, ecologists at Montana State University, Bozeman. And the short answer is no, the two say.

"It's long been argued that hunting has little effect on wolves' overall mortality rates, so they can sustain" high harvest rates, Creel says. (One paper arguing that point is here.) But quotas of 28% to 59%—which the two states used for their wolf-hunting policies—are based on a "flawed assumption" in the scientific literature about how hunting affects wolf populations, he says.
That assumption is that hunting and predator control have little effect on the number of wolves that would die in a year, because they simply substitute one type of death for another. According to this assumption, the same number of wolves die each year—but, instead of dying from something like old age, famine, disease, or injury, they are killed by people. --OF COURSE THE SEVERE HARM TO REMAINING PACK MEMEBERS THAT RESULT FROM HUMAN CULLING IS NOT CONSIDERED IN THIS PREMISE--BLOGGER RICK
To see if this was actually the case, Creel and Rotella analyzed death data on 21 wolf populations across North America, including those in Idaho and Montana. And they found the opposite result. "Hunting strongly increased the mortality rate for wolves; it was additive," Creel says. That means that if left in place, Idaho's and Montana's hunting and predator-control programs will probably cause gray wolf populations to decline more than state wildlife managers have suggested.
Although wolves will not be hunted in either state this year, both states' wildlife officials expect that they will be in the future. Creel hopes that these wildlife managers will incorporate the new results in their hunting policies. Those policies regard harvests of 35% of their wolf populations as sustainable. "This would be a high level of harvest for any species," Rotella says.
"It's unprecedented for a species to move directly from the endangered species list to a harvest of this magnitude," Creel says. "And, when combined with the predator-control programs, the data suggest the effect will be larger than previously thought." Northern Rocky Mountains wolf packs may be more susceptible to being harmed by hunting because they are generally small, with few adult members. It's thus more likely that any wolf killed in a hunt will be a breeding adult. When a pack loses its breeding adults, it is apt to fall apart.

WE CANNOT LET A FEW POLITICALLY MOTIVATED SENATORS USURP THE ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT AND ALLOW WOLVES TO BE WANTONLY KILLED IN THE ROCKIES

TAKE ACTION:

What part of NO don't they understand?

 Wolves are a protected species.

 These people will stop at nothing to kill wolves.

Please start calling Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, President Obama and the USFWS Director.

President Obama: 202-456-1414

Ken Salazar, Head of the Interior: 202-208-3181

USFWS Director: 202-208-4717

Tell them no wolf hunts in Idaho or Montana! Gray wolves are protected under the ESA, this is egregious!
Let them know the American people support wolves and don't want then slaughtered for the hunting and ranching lobbies

Our friend George Wuerthner again hitting the nail on the head as it relates to certain hunters, ranchers and farmers refusing to understand that their continual efforts to deny our charismatic predators a place in our landscape can ultimately make them(hunters, ranchers and farmers)the endangered species!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wolf Restoration is a Challenge to West's Old Guard

By George Wuerthner, 9-27-10

	George Wallace defying federal officials at U of Alabama

A year ago I wrote a New West column asking rhetorically if hunters were stupid. In that article I wondered if hunters were aware of the fact that shooting wolves is unpopular with most Americans and if hunting of wolves continued, it might create a backlash against hunting.  http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/are_hunters_stupid_the_unintended_consequences_of_wolf_hunting/C41/L41/
To answer my own question I have to say that hunters are not stupid—but most are clueless.  Hunters don't seem to have a inkling about how non-hunters perceive them.  Public support for hunting is only luke-warm—the majority of Americans grudgingly accept hunting, but they are not enthusiastic about people killing animals.
Only 10% or so of Americans hunt. Hunters are in the minority and they are largely older white males. In America older white males are in their twilight years.
Demographically the country is changing to a more diverse racial, religious and age structure.  The majority of Americans who do not hunt only accept hunting if they believe the hunter is killing an animal to eat it. Public support for hunting declines rapidly if hunters kill animals for trophy mounts. When it comes to shooting an animal just to kill it as would be the case for hunters shooting wolves—and/or worse as a matter of vindication as in predator control, public support turns to public opposition.
Both the ESA and wolves are extremely popular with the country as a whole. I suggest that if hunters succeed in this end run around the ESA, and there is the perception of a widespread slaughter of wolves, they are the ones that risk long term public opposition.
This was brought home to me last week. I asked my 13 year old son if he wanted to go hunting with me this fall. He said "Dad, I don't want to hunt.  Hunters are redneck wolf killers. I don't want to be like them." Another friend in Montana told me his 14 year old son had the same negative reaction about hunting and hunters and doesn't want to hunt this year.
Ironically hunters are all worried about their shrinking numbers and how to get kids to become the next generation of hunters. Today's kids are better informed ecologically than their parents, and most of them have sympathies for animals like wolves.  They don't want to have anything to do with people who kill predators.  If hunters want to ensure they won't have a younger generation following in their footsteps, they could probably not find a better way than advocating wolf killing.
The actions of hunters today and their Congressional allies remind me of the segregationists in the South.  I can still see in my mind's eye the image of George Wallace and the Alabama state police standing on the steps of the University resolutely defying a court order to admit blacks into the University of Alabama.  Wallace was immensely popular for his act of defiance against the hated "feds".  Yet Wallace seemed unaware that he was part of the last hurrah of the segregated South. What he did was immensely popular at home, but it was out of step with where America was on race.  In the end, thankfully George Wallace and his ilk lost the war—and today we have a black President.
The passion, the anger, and the frustration exhibited by hunters (and ranchers ) is not so much about wolf predation itself.  It's really about control. For decades hunters and ranchers have enjoyed a predator free environment. Hunters have always been the ones who controlled wildlife and state wildlife agencies. The outrage expressed by many hunters and ranchers is a reaction to what is perceived as the audacity of other people in society to assume, much less assert, they should have a voice in wildlife management issues. For decades hunters have considered elk and deer their "property". You can see this attitude displayed in their angry comments. "We paid for managing wildlife and by gosh, we are the only ones who should have a say in how all wildlife is managed." The overriding attitude is one of possession. Wolves are killing "our" elk and deer. The deer and elk by all rights exist for us.
The debate over wolf management challenges those assumptions. Just as judges who ordered an end to segregation in the South, shaking up and eventually tumbling a hundred years of racism, hunters (and ranchers) are fearful they are losing their control over wildlife.  That's the context which the wolf debate is framed, and if one doesn't understand this, the passion, anger, and outrage doesn't make sense.
Even  with thousands of wolves, the number of cattle and sheep killed by wolves is and would continue to be tiny compared to the number lost to diseases, poison plants, and even domestic dogs.  Wolves are not really a threat to the livestock industry.  And neither are they a threat to hunting. There will always be plenty of places where hunters can find elk and deer to shoot--hunting isn't going to disappear because of wolves.  So the passions expressed are not based on just the perceived impact of wolves on hunters and ranchers, rather it is the idea that wolves and wolf management challenges the old guard and their position of power. Wolf restoration is more than bringing back a valued predator to the landscape—it is a challenge to the hegemony of the West's old guard.
Hunters are much like George Wallace standing up in front of the halls of the University. They are standing up to change in the established order of things—and that is scary to anyone. I predict that if hunters succeed in obtaining an exemption to the ESA that permits killing of wolves, it will only swell the ranks of animal rights groups, and anti hunting support around the country. And that, in the end, is a far worse threat to hunting than wolves.
In California after hunters repeatedly countered non-hunters efforts to have a say in cougar hunting, the voters finally outlawed all hunting of cougars. I suspect if hunters push too far, they may well see a similar outcome about wolves. They may be win the first battles, but they are going to lose control of the issue in the end. Not only could this result in a ban on all hunting of predators, but it could well lead to an acceleration of the decline in hunter ranks as more and more moderate and ecologically informed hunters and/or potential young hunters are turned off by hunter attitudes. In the end, hunters have to recognize that there is now a wider public who are demanding a voice in wildlife management. 

Just like with Wolves and Coyotes, human culling of Cougars disrupts populations, encourages younger males to enter new territories who are inexperienced and get into trouble with humans...............dire results for the entire population because humans start killing females as well as juvenile males---bye bye cougar population when this happens

Is cougar hunting breeding chaos?

Instead of reducing conflicts between cougars and humans, heavy hunting seems to make the problems worse, says a WSU researcher.

By Sandi Doughton
Seattle Times science reporter

 North America's largest cat

The name: Cougar, mountain lion and puma are names for the same animal: Puma concolor.
Size: Adult males average 140 pounds; females average about 100 pounds.
Age: Cougars can live more than 12 years.
Habitat: Found in forested mountain and canyon country. Males can range over 150 square miles. Female ranges are half that size.
Numbers: An estimated 2,500 to 4,000 cougars may live in Washington, but numbers are uncertain.
Prey: Their preferred prey are deer and elk. A large male will kill a deer or elk every nine to 12 days and feed off it for several days.
Fascinating facts: Known for their strength, cougars can leap 30 feet from a standstill. Over the past 100 years, cougars killed one person in Washington and attacked 15.
Source: Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife

CLE ELUM, Kittitas County — Jane the cougar is having a bad day.
Ben Maletzke, the cougar biologist, couldn't be happier.
After days of chasing the crafty animal, his team of hounds finally ran her up a tree where Maletzke could take aim with his tranquilizer gun.
Now, the predator powerful enough to take down a bull elk is lying helpless under a tent of fir trees while Maletzke replaces the batteries in her radio collar, checks her teeth and measures her girth.
Jane is part of a healthy cougar population that lives in relative harmony with its human neighbors in the rapidly growing communities just east of Snoqualmie Pass.
In the past six years, Jane has killed deer less than 50 paces from homes — yet residents don't even realize she's there. She has never harmed pets or livestock, nor have any of her offspring.
The story is different in northeastern Washington, where the state has stepped up hunting in response to soaring numbers of complaints about cougars, including two attacks on toddlers. A bill signed by Gov. Christine Gregoire last week could expand the cougar killing.
But startling results from studies such as Maletzke's question this traditional approach to cougar management.
Instead of reducing conflicts between cougars and humans, heavy hunting seems to make the problems worse, says Robert Wielgus, Maletzke's graduate adviser and director of Washington State University's Large Carnivore Conservation Laboratory.
"It goes against the grain of what we've been doing for decades," Wielgus says.
Killing large numbers of cougars creates social chaos, Wielgus and his students found. Trophy hunters often target adult males, which act as a stabilizing force in cougar populations. The adults police large territories and kill or drive out young males. With the grown-ups gone, the "young hooligans" run wild, Wielgus says.
"Every time you kill a dominant male, about three of these young guys come for the funeral."
Evidence suggests cougars under two years of age, just learning to live on their own, account for the majority of run-ins with people and domestic animals. "You don't get to be an old cougar by doing stupid stuff like hanging out in backyards and eating cats," Wielgus says.
In the Selkirk Mountains at the confluence of Washington, British Columbia and Idaho, Wielgus and his students discovered the cougar population was actually crashing at a time when everyone assumed it was booming — because complaints were off the charts.
Hunters had killed all the older males. Then they targeted adult females, whose numbers were plummeting. "About all that was left were these teenagers, and that could well be the reason there were so many complaints — even though there weren't many cougars," Wielgus says.
Another project focused on a smaller area in the Colville National Forest, also in northeastern Washington, where the state opened emergency hunts to reduce cougar numbers in response to complaints. But the cougar population didn't drop at all. Instead, young males from a hundred miles around moved into the territories vacated when adults were killed.
"The only change is that the problematic component — the younger males — increased," Wielgus said.
By contrast, the cougars Maletzke studies along the Interstate 90 corridor have been subject to light levels of hunting. Yet conflicts are rare.
"When you've got a population of smart, resident cats, that's a stable situation," he says.
The number of cats killed by hunters in Washington has climbed in recent years, exceeding levels in the 1950s when the state paid a $75 bounty to encourage eradication.
Before 1996, hunters killed an average of 156 cougars a year. Since the initiative, the harvest rate increased more than 40 percent, to an average of 225 animals a year.
That's because state wildlife managers, worried cougars would proliferate when hound-hunting ended, liberalized the rules for so-called "boot" hunters: Those who walk or drive the woods primarily in search of deer or elk.
The state raised the bag limit to two cougars, doubled the length of the season, and cut the cost of a cougar tag to $10. Before the initiative, the state issued about 600 cougar permits annually. Now, more than 60,000 hunters have license to kill cougars every year.
State lawmakers also enacted several bills to allow hound hunting in counties where complaints about cougars killing livestock or menacing people were high — leading to the heavy kill rate in northeastern Washington.
One unintended consequence of the new rules is a growing toll on female cougars. Whereas hound hunters selectively targeted large males, or toms, "boot" hunters tend to shoot any cougar they run across.
"Killing big adult males is not a good thing," Wielgus says. "But once you start killing off females, there's nowhere to go but down."
The state is revising its game-management plan and considering quotas to reduce the number of female cougars killed, says Donny Martorello, carnivore-section manager for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.
The agency also is weighing the research that suggests heavy hunting may aggravate cougar problems but is waiting for more solid evidence, Martorello says.

PBS Wolverine documentary film on NATURE this Fall.............click on link below to view the trailer........looks very good!!!!!

click on link below to watch WOLVERINE; CHASING THE PHANTOM
http://video.pbs.org/video/1558511285

Northern Rockies Conservation Cooperative sponsoring free screening of NATURES new film: Wolverine:chasing the phantom

Join us for a sneak premiere on Saturday October 9, 2010! Jackson Hole Center for the Arts...............

NATURE's Wolverine: Chasing the Phantom

"Its name stirs images of the savage, the untamable. Legend paints it as a solitary, blood-thirsty killer that roams the icy heart of the frozen north, taking down prey as large as moose, crushing bones to powder with its powerful jaws. But there is another image of the wolverine that is just beginning to emerge, one that is far more complex than its reputation suggests. This film will take viewers into the secretive world of the largest and least-known member of the weasel family to reveal who this dynamic little devil truly is. Hard-wired to endure an environment of scarcity, the wolverine is one of the most efficient and resourceful carnivores on Earth."

Saturday, October 9, 2010
Center for the Arts, Jackson, WY
Doors 6 PM
Film 7 PM
FREE!

A Q&A with writer/producer Gianna Savoie and wildlife biologist Rick Yates will follow the film.

Stop by early to grab a seat, meet the researchers, and enjoy pizza and beer available from the Snake River Brewing Company.
Tracks, telemetry, and science for kids!

This evening is brought to you by: Northern Rockies Conservation Cooperative, Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival,
Winter Wildlands Alliance, & Wyoming PBS.

Co-sponsored by: Center for the Arts, Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance, Jackson Hole Wildlife Foundation,
The Murie Center, NATURE, Patagonia, Snake River Brewing Company, & The Wolverine Foundation.

For more information, call 307-733-6856.

 

An excellent analysis of all that we have been reviewing week after week regarding States versus Federal management of wolves, ranchers hostility, wolves positive impact on the land...........etc, etc, etc

The Big Bad Wolf Makes Good: The Yellowstone Success Story and Those Who Want to Kill It
Tuesday 28 September 2010
by: Chip Ward  |  TomDispatch | Op-Ed

At long last, good news. Fifteen years have passed since wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park and the results are in. The controversial experiment has been a stellar success. The Big Bad Wolf is back and in this modern version of the old story, all that huffing and puffing has been good for the land and the creatures that live on it. Biggie, it turns out, got a bum rap.

The success of the Yellowstone project is the kind of good news we long for in this era of oil spills, monster storms, massive flooding, crushing heat waves, and bleaching corals. For once, a branch of our federal government, the Department of the Interior, saw something broken and actually fixed it. In a nutshell: conservation biologists considered a perplexing problem -- the slow but steady unraveling of the Yellowstone ecosystem -- figured out what was causing it, and then proposed a bold solution that worked even better than expected.

Sadly, the good news has been muted by subsequent political strife over wolf reintroduction outside of Yellowstone. Along the northern front of the Rocky Mountains in Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Utah, and Colorado, as well as New Mexico and Arizona, so-called wolf wars have added fuel to a decades-old battle over the right to graze cattle or hunt on public land. The shouting has overwhelmed both science and civil discourse. This makes it all the harder to convey the lessons learned to an American public that is mostly ecologically illiterate and never really understood why wolves were put back into Yellowstone in the first place. Even the legion of small donors who supported the project mostly missed the reasons it was undertaken, focusing instead on the "charismatic" qualities of wolves and the chance to see them in the wild.

No Wolves, No Water

Here's the piece we still don't get: when we exterminated wolves from Yellowstone in the early 1900s, killing every last one, we de-watered the land. That's right -- no wolves eventually meant fewer streams, creeks, marshes, and springs across western landscapes like Yellowstone where wolves had once thrived.
The chain of effects went roughly like this: no wolves meant that many more elk crowded onto inviting river and stream banks where the grass is green and the livin' easy. A growing population of fat elk, in no danger of being turned into prey, gnawed down willow and aspen seedlings before they could mature. Willows are both food and building material for beavers. As the willows declined, so did beaver populations. When beavers build dams and ponds, they create wetland habitats for countless bugs, amphibians, fish, birds, and plants, as well as slowing the flow of water and distributing it over broad areas. The consequences of their decline rippled across the land.

Meanwhile, as the land dried up, Yellowstone's overgrazed riverbanks eroded. Life-giving river water receded, leaving those banks barren. Spawning beds for fish were silted over. Amphibians lost precious shade where they could have sheltered and hidden. Yellowstone's web of life was fraying and becoming threadbare.

The unexpected relationship between absent wolves and absent water is just one example of how big, scary predators like grizzlies and mountain lions, often called "charismatic carnivores," regulate their ecosystems from the top down. The results are especially relevant in an era of historic droughts and global warming, both of which are stressing already arid Western lands. Wolf reintroduction wasn't a scheme designed to undermine vacationing elk hunters or harass ranchers who graze their cattle on public lands. It wasn't done to please some cabal of elitist, urban environmentalists eager to show rural rednecks who's the boss, though out here in the West that interpretation's held sway at many public meetings called to discuss wolf reintroduction.
Let's be clear then: the decision to put wolves back in Yellowstone was a bold experiment backed by the best conservation science available to restore a cherished American ecosystem that was coming apart at the seams.

The Biggest Losers

Today, wolves are thriving in Yellowstone. The 66 wolves trapped in Canada and released in Yellowstone and the Idaho wilderness in 1995-96 have generated more than 1,700 wolves. More than 200 wolf packs exist in the area today and the effect on the environment has been nothing short of astonishing.

There was one beaver colony in the park at the time wolves were reintroduced. Today, 12 colonies are busy storing water, evening out seasonal water flows, recharging springs, and creating habitat. Willow stands are robust again and the songbirds that nest in them are recovering. Creatures that scavenge wolf-kills for meat, including ravens, eagles, wolverines, and bears, have benefited. Wolves have pushed out and killed the coyotes that feed on pronghorn antelope, so pronghorn numbers are also up. Riverbanks are lush and shady again. With less competition from elk for grass, the bison in the park are doing better, too.
Elk are the sole species that has been diminished -- and that, after all, was the purpose of putting wolves back in the game in the first place. The elk population of Yellowstone is still larger than it was at its low point in the late 1960s, but there are fewer elk today than in recent decades. The decline has alarmed elk hunters and the local businesses that rely on their trade.
Worse yet, from the hunting point of view, elk behavior has changed dramatically. Instead of camping out on stream banks and overeating, they roam far more and in smaller numbers, browsing in brushy areas where there is more protective cover. Surviving elk are healthier, but leaner, warier, far more dispersed, and significantly harder to hunt. This further dismays those who had become accustomed to easy hunting and bigger animals.

A lively debate is underway among game wardens, guides, and wildlife biologists about just how far elk numbers have declined, what role drought and other non-wolf variables may be playing in that decline, and whether elk numbers will -- or even should -- rebound. State wildlife agencies that once fed hay to bountiful populations of elk to keep them from starving during harsh winters depend on hunting and fishing licenses to fill their coffers. Predictably enough, they have come down on the side of the frustrated big game hunters, who think the wolves have killed too many elk. Hunters have been a powerful force for conservation when habitat for birds and big game is at stake, but wolf reintroduction hits them right in the ol' game bag, and on this issue they seem to be abandoning former conservation allies. Of course, wolves themselves can be hunted and selling the privilege of doing so has proven lucrative for state wildlife agencies. Montana recently expanded its wolf-killing quota from 75 to 186, while Idaho licensed 220 wolf kills in 2009.

Beyond the Bovine Curtain

As wolf reintroduction took hold and wolves migrated out of Yellowstone as far as Oregon to the west and Colorado to the east, it became clear that surrounding states needed plans to deal with their spread. Once regarded as an endangered species and legally protected by the Endangered Species Act, wolves were taken off the formal list of protected creatures wherever states created plans for restoring and managing them. The intention of the federal government was to allow states to participate in, and so take some control over, the recovery process in the West.
As it happened, however, most states took a strikingly hostile approach to their new wolf populations, treating them as varmints. A federal court took away Wyoming's power to regulate wolves within its borders when it decided that the state's management goal would be no wolves at all outside of the Yellowstone and Teton national parks. Other Western states are now planning to keep their numbers as low as possible without triggering a federal takeover, too low to play their ecological role, or even survive over the long run, according to conservation biologists. After wolves were "delisited" in Idaho in 2009, 188 of them were killed by hunters before the year was out.

In August 2010, a federal judge ruled that wolves everywhere but in Minnesota and Alaska (where wolf populations are plentiful and healthy) must be relisted as an endangered species and afforded more protection. How this major decision will shape the debate from here on out is uncertain. Since relisting precludes sport hunting, state wildlife agencies are now making plans to kill more wolves themselves to keep their numbers low. Critics worry about a return to the days when wolves were routinely shot, trapped, poisoned, and gassed in their dens.
Up until now, where wolves and cows mix, cows have ruled. What wildlife advocate George Wuerthner calls the "bovine curtain" limits full wolf restoration to within Yellowstone's park boundaries. Outside the park, where the feds have less power and control, wolf packs continually form but are often slaughtered, usually at the insistence of ranchers who can legally shoot wolves that attack cattle. They are also compensated for wolf-kill losses from both state funds and privately donated ones. Wolf predation accounts for only about 1% of livestock deaths across the northern Rockies, but those deaths generate disproportionate resentment and fear.

Ranchers are the first to understand that, in the arid West, a cow may require 250 acres of forage to live. In the states where wolves are spreading, cows wander wide and don't sleep safely in barns at night as they do in the east. Wolves need room to roam, too. Overlap and predation are the inevitable results. If wolves are ever to effectively play their ecological role again across the West, significant changes in animal husbandry, like adding range riders and guard dogs, would be required, as well undoubtedly as less grazing overall. The implied threat to limit grazing provokes fierce opposition from cattlemen's associations, a powerful and influential Republican constituency throughout the West. Real cowboys don't sip tea, but as anger over those wolves builds they may be riding off to the nearest tea party nevertheless.

At public hearings across the rural West wherever wolves are rebounding, near-hysterical locals claim that their children will be carried off from their yards by those awful beasts set loose by evil Obamacrats willing to sacrifice life and limb to win favor with tree-hugging easterners. In New Mexico, such hostility has led to poaching that has decimated an endangered species of gray wolves reintroduced 12 years ago after the last survivors of that species were trapped, bred in captivity, and released into the wild.

Eco-Commodities or Ecological Communities?

Today's wolf wars pit opposing perspectives on how (or even why) our public lands should be managed against each other. The disagreement is fundamental. On one side is a historic/traditional resource management paradigm that sees our Western lands as a storehouse of timber, minerals, and fresh water; on the other side, a new biocentric orientation driven by conservation biologists who see landscapes as whole ecosystems and all species as having intrinsic value. At one end of the spectrum lie strip-mining coal companies; at the other, deep ecologists. In between you can find conflict, contradiction, and confusion as we sort out a new consensus about how to manage vast public land holdings in the West.

In the beginning, Americans assumed that nature was inefficient (if efficiency is defined as getting the most bang for the buck) and that humans could manage the planet better than Mother Earth. Wild rivers, after all, spill their liquid bounty where they will and then empty themselves into the sea. What a waste! In the same way, forest fires were viewed as a prime example of Nature's wanton destruction. To a rancher who is leasing public land, wolves and cougars are monsters of inefficiency.
It's far clearer now that nature is, in fact, efficient indeed, if creating healthy, viable ecosystems is what's on your mind. Matter and energy are never wasted in food webs where synergy is the rule. Because we have come to appreciate how rich nature's interconnections are, we are now committed to protecting species we once would have wiped out with little regard. Health (including the health of the planet), not wealth alone, is becoming a priority. Think of wolf reintroduction, then, as a kind of hinge-point between the two paradigms. After centuries of not leaving the natural world's order to chance, micro-managing wherever we could, we are now encouraged to take a chance on Nature, to trust the self-organizing powers of life to heal ecosystems we have wounded.

While organizing campaigns to make polluters accountable, I learned that citizens generally won't take them on until they grasp that the deepest link they have to their environment is their own bloodstreams. Once they understand the pathways from a smokestack or a poisoned watershed to the tumors growing in their children's bodies, they can become a powerful force. But first they have to know what's at stake.

In this regard, ecological literacy is not a side issue. It's a prerequisite for survival. The articulation of reality is more primal than any strategy or policy. If greed is turning the Earth into a scorched planet of slums, ignorance is its enabler. Just as American farmers once realized that erosion follows ignorance and learned how to plow differently, just as most of us finally learned that rivers should not be used as toxic dumps, so today we must learn that environments have the equivalent of operating systems. Predation by large carnivores is written deep into the code of much of the American landscape. Today, a rancher who expects to do business in a predator-free landscape is no more reasonable than yesterday's industrialist who expected to use the nearest river as a sewer. Living with wolves may be a challenging proposition, but it's hardly impossible to do -- as folks in Minnesota or Canada can attest.

Hard days are ahead as the weather, once benign and predictable, becomes hotter, drier, and ever more chaotic. Western landscapes are already stressed -- whole forests are dying and deserts are becoming dustbowls. To maintain their vitality in the face of such dire challenges, those lands will need all the relief we can give them. We now understand far better the many ways in which nature's living communities are astonishingly connected and reciprocal. If we could only find the courage to trust their self-organizing powers to heal the wounds we have inflicted, we might become as resilient as those Yellowstone wolves.

Conservation Northwest--a transborder Conservation Organization helping to re-wild Washigton State up through the British Columbia Rockies--a fine outfit they are!

About Us: Conservation Northwest

Our story as an organization, plus descriptions of our staff, board, and geographical offices

"Keeping the Northwest Wild"

Proven and successful For 20 years, we've protected and connected hundreds of thousands of acres in Washington and BC   Smart and strategic We work with local communities, build science-based solutions, and lead innovative partnerships

Conservation Northwest connects and protects old growth and other wild areas from the Washington Coast to the BC Rockies, to benefit people and wildlife. Since 1989 we have protected hundreds of thousands of acres of wildlife habitat: from the big tree forests south of Mount Rainier to forest critical to lynx in the Loomis east of North Cascades National Park.

Today we are ensuring the region is wild enough for wolves, grizzly bears, and mountain caribou; working with local communities on forest restoration, sustainable timber jobs, and wilderness protection; and creating safe passage for wildlife across Interstate 90, to name a few.

Read about our successes

Discover our coalitions and partnerships

Peruse our financial data

See the ecosystems where we work

Please support our work or get involved

Just a few of our successful partnerships and campaigns:

 Columbia Highlands Initiative Northeast Washington Forestry Coalition
 Mountain Caribou Project
 The Cascades Conservation Partnership
 Loomis Forest Fund I-90 Wildlife Bridges Coalition
 Pinchot Partnership
 Ancient Forest Roadshow

Conservation Northwest is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization with four offices and twenty-one staff around the state that are supported by 5,000 families and hundreds of volunteers who together provide 70 percent of our funding.

Tennessee dropping oral rabies bait along it's border with Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia in an effort to minimize rabies outbreaks in racoons-- Is it likely that 300-400 years ago rabies outbreaks were minimal because wolves, cougars and bobcats assisted Bears in keeping mesocarnivore populations (raccoons and skunks) in check?

Wild raccoons to be vaccinated for rabies

State and federal officials are working together to vaccinate wild raccoons for rabies.

The Tennessee Department of Health and the United States Department of Agriculture will be distributing an oral rabies vaccine for wild raccoons along Tennessee's borders with Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia, starting October 1.
"We are pleased to be part of this important and effective program to prevent rabies and protect the health of Tennesseans," said Health Commissioner Susan R. Cooper, MSN, RN. "We also want to remind pet owners of the importance of having rabies vaccinations current for all domestic animals to ensure their health and safety."
Vaccine packets placed inside fishmeal blocks or coated with fishmeal will be distributed throughout a 15 county area in Tennessee. The barrier varies from 30 to 60 miles wide and covers approximately 3,400 square miles, running along the Georgia border in southeast Tennessee near Chattanooga to the Virginia/North Carolina border in northeast Tennessee. Baits will be distributed by hand from vehicles in urban and suburban areas and by dropping from specially equipped airplanes in rural areas.
The oral rabies vaccine will be distributed October 1 through 10 in Carter, Cocke, Greene, Hamblen, Hawkins, Sullivan, Unicoi and Washington Counties. Bait distribution will take place from October 7 through 15 in Bradley, Hamilton, Marion, McMinn, Meigs, Monroe and Polk Counties.
"Rabies is most common in wild animals in Tennessee, and it poses a risk to humans and domestic animals that come into contact with wildlife," said L. Rand Carpenter, DVM, assistant state public health veterinarian. "Control of raccoon rabies is vital to public health and we are very supportive of this USDA effort."
This is the ninth year Tennessee has participated in baiting with rabies vaccine to slow and possibly halt the spread of raccoon rabies.
Two raccoons have been diagnosed with rabies in the eastern part of Tennessee so far this year. Since raccoon rabies was first detected in Tennessee in 2003, the disease has spread much less rapidly here than has been documented in other areas of the United States.
Although the vaccine products are safe, the USDA Wildlife Services program has issued these precautions:

• If you or your pet finds bait, confine your pet and look for other baits in the area. Toss baits into a wooded or fencerow area. These baits should be removed from where your pet could easily eat them. While eating these baits will not harm your pet, consuming several baits might upset your pet's stomach.
• Do not attempt to remove the oral rabies vaccine packet from your pet's mouth, as you could be bitten.
• Wear gloves or use a towel when you pick up bait. While there is no harm in touching undamaged baits, they have a strong fishmeal smell. Wash your hands thoroughly with soap and water if there is any chance that the vaccine packet has been ruptured.
• Instruct children to leave baits alone.
• There is a warning label placed on each bait advising people not to touch the bait. The warning also contains the rabies information line telephone number.
  

For additional information concerning rabies prevention or the oral rabies vaccine program, call the USDA Wildlife Services toll-free rabies line at 1-866-487-3297 or the Tennessee Department of Health at 1-615-741-7247. Or go to this website.

As a reminder to help prevent exposure to animals that can carry rabies, the Tennessee Department of Health recommends that individuals enjoy wild animals such as raccoons, skunks, foxes and bats from a distance and keep pets up-to-date on rabies vaccination. The CDC also has a website to help educate children about rabies.

Our friends Jon Way, Stan Gehrt, Roland Kays and Stephen DeStefano contributed to todays New York Times(Science Section Front Page) article on Eastern Coyotes

Mysteries That Howl and Hunt

By CAROL KAESUK YOON

Published: September 27, 201

With a chorus of howls and yips wild enough to fill a vast night sky, the coyote has ignited the imagination of one culture after another. In many American Indian mythologies, it is celebrated as the Trickster, a figure by turns godlike, idiotic and astoundingly sexually perverse. In the Navajo tradition the coyote is revered as God's dog. When European colonists encountered the species, they were of two minds, heralding it as an icon of the expansive West and vilifying it as the ultimate varmint, the bloodthirsty bane of sheep and cattle ranchers.

Enlarge This Image

Jason Holley

 

Enlarge This Image

Jonathan Way

Animals in the Northeast thought to be coyotes actually carry wolf and coyote DNA, studies have found.

 

Mark Twain was so struck when he first saw that "long, slim, sick and sorry-looking skeleton, with a gray wolfskin stretched over it" that he called it "a living, breathing allegory of Want." And Twain's description itself was so vivid, it inspired the animator Chuck Jones to create that perennial failure known to cartoon-loving children everywhere, Wile E. Coyote of Road Runner-hating fame.

Yet as familiar as the coyote seems, these animals remain remarkably poorly understood. They have remained elusive despite fantastic ecological success that has been described as "a story of unparalleled range expansion," as they have moved over the last century from the constrictions of their prairie haunts to colonize every habitat from wild to urban, from coast to coast. And they have retained their mystery even as interest has intensified with increasing coyote-human interactions — including incidents of coyotes dragging off small dogs and cats, and even (extremely rarely) attacks on people, from Los Angeles to the northern suburbs of New York City, where four children were attacked in separate incidents this summer.
Coyotes have managed to elude much serious scrutiny by being exquisitely wary, so much so that even dedicated coyote scientists can struggle to find ways to lay eyes on them, not to mention hands.

Dr. Laura Prugh, a wildlife ecologist at the University of California, Berkeley, said trying to survey a population of coyotes in Alaska was "like working with a ghost species." To even have a chance of catching a coyote, she said, traps must be boiled to wash away human scent, handled with gloves and then hidden extremely carefully with all traces of human footprints brushed away. Even then, the trap is likely to catch only the youngest and most inexperienced of animals.

Coyotes have remained so much in possession of their own secrets that it was not until this year that the real identity of the coyotes living in the eastern part of the country was revealed. Two separate teams of researchers studying the genes of coyotes in the Northeast reported evidence that these animals that have for decades upon decades been thought of as coyotes are in fact coyote-wolf hybrids.

The team headed by Roland W. Kays, curator of mammals at the New York State Museum, studied coyotes from New Jersey to Maine. Jonathan Way, wildlife biologist with the Eastern Coyote Research consulting firm, and colleagues examined coyotes around Cape Cod and Boston. Both teams found that the animals carry wolf and coyote DNA. The paper by Dr. Kays and his colleagues was published in Biology Letters; the paper by Dr. Way and his colleagues was published in Northeastern Naturalist.


Based on the wolf DNA found in the Eastern coyotes, Dr. Kays and colleagues hypothesize in their paper that Western coyotes dispersing eastward north of the Great Lakes across Canada during the last century mated with wolves along the way, bringing that wolf DNA along with them to the Northeast.
The findings may explain why coyotes in the East are generally larger than their Western counterparts — that is, more wolflike in size — and why they are so much more varied in coat color, as might be expected from a creature with a more diverse genome. It may also explain why Eastern coyotes appear to be more adept as deer hunters than their Western forebears, which tend toward smaller prey, like voles and rabbits.


What the finding does not settle is how to define exactly what these animals are, or for that matter, what to call them. Dr. Way favors the term "coywolf" to denote the animals' hybrid heritage. He said because these animals are part wolf — species that enjoy protected status — they deserve some benefits not available to coyotes, which are typically freely hunted.

Dr. Kays, however, says that he is not a fan of the name, in part because the animals are "mostly coyote and a little bit of wolf," but also because the Eastern coyote may be less a finished product deserving of a name and more an evolutionary work in progress.

There are even hints that the traveling coyotes may have been up to more than just dawdling with a wolf or two. Dr. Kays's team also found one coyote carrying something similar to domestic dog DNA, suggesting that the question of what exactly an Eastern coyote is may become even more complicated as scientists learn more.

One major complication is that all the species in the genus Canis, to which the coyote belongs, can successfully interbreed. In other words, coyotes (or Canis latrans, meaning "barking dog") and domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) and every kind of wolf, from the red wolf to the Eastern wolf to the gray wolf (Canis lupus), can mate and produce perfectly healthy pups. No wonder, then, that interactions among these species have led to a genetic mess that researchers sometimes refer to as "Canis soupus."

That coyotes will consider a wide variety of species as mates may be a reflection of their adaptability, also evident in their catholic tastes in food. Stephen DeStefano, a wildlife biologist with the United States Geological Survey's Massachusetts Cooperative Research Unit and author of "Coyote at the Kitchen Door" (Harvard University Press, 2010), explains that coyotes will feast on things as diverse as beetles, bird eggs, garbage, pocket gophers, raspberries, pigs, wild plums, porcupines, apples, flying squirrels and watermelons.

But while such broad tastes have mostly made villains of coyotes as they happily expand their diet to take in the family pet when they can get it, they have also, at least once, made them the hero. Dr. Stanley D. Gehrt, a wildlife ecologist at Ohio State University who has studied coyotes in the Chicago area for the past decade, found that coyotes have a taste for Canada goose eggs. Rather than just dining at a single nest, the coyotes will plunder multiple nests in a night, gathering what eggs they can't eat and burying them for later. The result has put a significant dent in what had been fast increasing numbers of geese, considerably noisier and messier urban creatures than the coyote.

Flexibility is also a hallmark of coyotes' hunting. Not only do coyotes hunt singly and in packs, they have even been observed hunting cooperatively with other species. In Wyoming, scientists have seen coyotes hunting with badgers, large burrowing creatures that enjoy a nice bit of ground squirrel. As badgers dig toward squirrels in their tunnels, coyotes wait above for the squirrels to pop up for a quick escape, or perhaps to be chased back down to be eaten by a badger. Teams may work together often for an hour or more, the coyote mock-chasing or otherwise playfully inviting the lethargic badger to activity when it pauses, and to good purpose. Coyotes hunting with badgers had to work less and ate more than solitary coyotes in the same area. These teams were so effective that researchers reported often seeing the same pairs working together again and again.

Despite such charming intelligence, the coyote has found itself almost universally despised, feared and hunted. Ranchers hate coyotes for killing millions of dollars in livestock each year. These thefts have been answered with many millions of tax dollars spent over the years on programs to kill coyotes through the deployment of cyanide, strychnine, baited sheep collars and guns of many kinds. It is a war that has been as unrelenting and intense as, some researchers say, it is useless.

"Killing coyotes is kind of like mowing the lawn," said Dr. Prugh. "It stimulates vigorous new growth."
Even in their new habitat of the great metropolises, with nary a sheep in sight, the coyote finds itself, at best, a nervously tolerated visitor. In recent years, urbanites have been simultaneously charmed and disturbed by coyotes strolling in Central Park, trotting into a Quiznos restaurant in downtown Chicago and taking a dash around a federal courthouse in Detroit. Such news is, more often than not, soon followed by the news that the coyote has been rounded up and removed. It doesn't seem to matter that coyotes are relatively harmless, as researchers point out, as any person or pet is much more likely to be injured or even killed by a domestic dog.

Neither does it seem to matter that the removal of a single showy coyote is unlikely to leave a city clear of these animals, or even give any sense of just how many coyotes a given city harbors. Dr. Gehrt said that when he began his research he would have guessed there were some 50 to 100 coyotes in the Chicago metropolitan area. After a decade of radio tracking and genetic analyses, he knows better. Dr. Gehrt said he conservatively estimates the number of these rarely seen creatures at more than 2,000.
The coyote is out there, and it is here to stay. For most people (as long as they are not very unlucky and they and their neighbors refrain from feeding coyotes — the No. 1 reason coyotes end up hurting someone), the coyote offers a bit of wildness to anyone willing to listen to the gift it has shared for millenniums — its unforgettable voice.

The moniker "barking dog" just doesn't cut it. The coyote has a bountiful lexicon that includes growls, huffs, woofs, whines, yelps, howls, "wow-oo-wow" sounds and more. Each serves its purpose in the coyote business of giving greetings or disseminating alarms.
But perhaps the sound that listeners know best, the one that makes us stop what we're doing and look up into the night sky, is that mad cacophony of mournful howls and maniacal yips. That, scientists say, is the coyote's territorial declaration, an effort to make a few coyotes sound like 10 or 100, to insist on their unassailable presence.

Dr. DeStefano writes in his book of the legends that coyotes are talking to us, that they can tell us things like where to find water, whether danger is approaching and whether today is the day that death will come, that the coyote has learned Comanche, Apache and many other languages, but not English.
But even we English speakers know what the coyote is telling us when we hear those calls, shrill and fierce as they bounce along canyons of rock or concrete or just down the cul-de-sac. The coyote is saying to everyone, fellow barking dogs or otherwise, "We are here

When Cougars and Wolves inhabit the same System, it is much like dogs and cats interacting in an alley

Steve Grooms who has published RETURN OF THE WOLF and who sits on the Advisory Board of International Wolf up in Ely, Minnesota wrote a very to-the-point and informative article focusing on how Cougars and Wolves can successfully co-exist in a given ecosystem.

My analysis of Steve's article below:

These two charismatic keystone top Predators have "lived in the same neighborhood in the Americas for millenia...................In fact, both the Cougar and Wolf vied for the most widely distributed Predator in the Americas prior to European colonization. While both are capable of killing each other and while both prey on many of the same hoofed species, both Cougar and Wolf historically were at home with each other whether in the Canadian Wilds, the Rockies.................the Great Plains........................the Southern Piney Woods and the Eastern Deciduous Forest.

While the Cougar at 120-200 pounds is the larger of the two predators(gray wolves weigh in at 85- 120 pounds and Eastern, Mexican and Red Wolves tip the scales at 50 to 100 pounds), a Cougar is no match for a Wolf Pack. For this reason, Cougars tend to utilize the more hilly, mountainous and marshy sections of habitat whereas wolves seek out the flatlands as their first choice of homeground. Cougars also enjoy Valley living but the Wolf packs make things tougher for them so they take advantage of their "stealth and spring" hunting techniques to bag Elk and deer in high Country..............As coursing(chasing) predators, wolves like the flatlands where they can go full out at their 40 mph top speeds and take down fleeing deer, elk and buffalo.

Because Wolf packs pressure Cougars where both species coexist, Cougars tend to produce smaller litters of cubs(stress on mother cougars results in smaller litters) and thus Cougar populations tend to be fewer in number than wolves. Cougars have smaller home ranges(150 square miles for males and 50 sq miles for females) versus Wolf packs (which range 200 to 500 square miles) and therefore Cougars do not have as much food available to them as Wolves(another reason for smaller populations)......................In addition, Wolf diets are more elastic than Cougars who tend to favor elk and deer(they will prey switch to Bighorn sheep where wolves put pressure on elk)...................Wolves savor both of those hoofed animals but will also dine on beaver and(when large enough in size(buffalo and Moose). 

Bottom line is that we human animals have to make the effort to create larger and more connective swaths of open space to allow  wolves, cougars(Griz and Black Bears, Wolverines) and all of the other Pre-Columbian predators enough food, cover and water to persist and thrive through the 21st Century and beyond.--BLOGGER RICK

click here to read all of Steve Grooms informative article

Our friend Stan Gehrt, Ohio State Coyote biologist who has studied urban wildlife in Chicago and environs for years updates us on coyote/human conflicts

Ecology of Coyotes in Urban Forest PreservesStanley D. Gehrt

Recently, coyote-human conflicts have increased in the Chicagoland area, presumably as a result of an increase in coyote numbers.

 Cook County, Illinois is interesting because it contains one of the highest human densities in the United States, but is also characterized by an extensive system of county forest preserves. This interspersion of preserved open spaces within an extensive urban landscape presents an opportunity for human-wildlife interactions.

 Thus, there is a demonstrated need for information on the numbers, movement patterns, health and related ecological aspects for coyotes in Cook County. Additionally, it is desirable to know the frequency and extent to which coyotes inhabiting forest preserves leave those areas and utilize adjacent properties, such as residential communities.

With funding from Cook County Animal Control and Conservation Medicine Coalition, this 3-year study is investigating various ecological aspects of coyotes using the Chicago landscape. Specifically, the objectives include 1) determine the population dynamics and movement patterns of resident coyotes on forest preserves, 2) ascertain the prevalence of various pathogens within the coyote population in Cook County, 3) determine the prevalence and distribution of zoonotic diseases in the coyote population and 4) identify large-scale landscape use by coyotes.

 To date, we have captured and radiocollared 34 coyotes from three primary study areas in the Chicago region. We are currently radiotracking to determine movement patterns and survival. Results from this project will include basic ecological information that also can be used for public education, such as the current status of coyote populations, mortality factors for urban coyotes and whether they are expanding in number. These results also are important for educated management programs.

Sadie Parr of the Canadian Wolf Coalition updating us on British Columbia's plan to cull cougars and wolves in the name of caribou protection

 On May 3rd, 2010, 16 environmental organizations joined forces to oppose the government's plan to kill more wolves and cougars in BC in the name of mountain caribou recovery.

On September 16th, 2010, the CWC met with Norm Macdonald, MLA for the Columbia River-Revelstoke area, for the second time about this issue. We wanted to let him know that since May, 6 other groups have joined the cause and there are now 22 environmental organizations signed-on to a letter opposing the plan to kill more predators in the name of caribou recovery.
 The letter is addressed to BC Environment Minister Barry Penner. Working together, these organizations have created a public version of the sign-on letter, collected signatures online and in person and recently submitted more than 3,500 signed letters from people all over the world opposing this outdated practice. MLA Macdonald will be meeting with Minister Penner in early October to present the sign-on letters collected at the Northern Lights Wildlife Wolf Centre in just over 3 months:
BC residents = 672 Rest of Canada = 1,525 International visitors = 1,308 TOTAL = 3,505
Signatures will continue to be collected.

The government grounds for killing predators are to help boost the smallest and most threatened caribou herds while buying time for the logged forest to regenerate. However, renowned biologists agree that the distributions of land parcels that have been protected for caribou recovery are unlinked and inaccessible. Given the habitat currently protected for them, many caribou herds would never reach a size that would sustain a stable population without killing predators for the next 50 years, if not indefinitely! This is NOT responsible wildlife management of the wolf, recognized as a keystone, indicator, and umbrella species
.
Despite this evidence, government workers have been trapping, sterilizing, and shooting wolves. Bag limits have been removed and hunting seasons lengthened. Tax dollars have been spent flying biologists in helicopters to find, capture, kill or sterilize and radio-collar wolves. These same wolves can then be shot by any hunter at any time. In order to save money, the government is considering shooting the wolves from helicopters.
 Despite using tax-payers money to put these plans into action, none of the management plans, decisions or practices thus far have been transparent nor made public.

 The 22 environmental groups as well as independent biologists argue that not enough low and mid-elevation habitat has been protected for the long-term persistence of mountain caribou. Protection from mineral exploration and commercial recreation needs to be implemented and enforced if caribou have a chance at a future.

 In BC, caribou have been in decline for decades, while resource extraction and development has continued on land that biologists have long recognized as being critical habitat for mountain caribou. These 22 groups, independent biologists and thousands of individuals are all urging the government to stop using wolves and other predators as a scapegoat. They are adamant that other steps be taken towards caribou conservation, before predator control is even considered.

 Recommendations include a halt on logging and road building in mountain caribou habitat, complete bans of snowmobiles in historical wintering areas, decommissioning of logging roads, and reducing the speed limit on the Salmo-Creston Highway, where vehicle collisions have already killed several caribou from a critically imperiled herd.

On October 23rd take action for wolves through Earthroots' fax centre at http://earthroots.org/index.php/BC-Wolf-Fax-Action-Centre.html. You will be able to add YOUR voice to the growing opposition of predator control in BC. Before the date please visit http://earthroots.org/index.php/Eastern-Wolf-Fax-Action-Centre.html and show your support for increased protection of threatened Eastern wolves.

Eastern Wolves in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan

 

A PRIMARY SOURCE JOURNAL OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN WILDLIFE(1830-1850) THROUGH THE EYES OF OSBORNE RUSSELL, A PROMINENT ROCKY MOUNTAIN FUR TRAPPER IN EARLY 19TH CENTURY AMERICA

Osborne Russell was a "Free Trapper" during the MOUNTAIN MAN era in the Rocky Mountain West circa 1800-1850..................Not only did he have experience trapping Beaver with Nathaniel Wyeth(expedition through the Rockies to the mouth of the Columbia River in 1834), Russell also was a member of Jim Bridger's Rocky Mountain Fur Company (which ultimately merged with the American Fur Company).

As the Beaver trade started to ebb to a close(decade of 1840-1850), Russell still stayed in the Mountains operating as a FREE TRAPPER(an independent trapper not beholden to any one Company or Outfit) until the wagon train migrations of settlers began to pour into the Region bringing the Mountain Man era to a close in 1850.

Operating out of Fort Hall on the Snake River just West of Yellowstone and the Tetons, Russell was one of the rare breed of Frontiersman who articulately observed and kept a "lewis and Clark"detailed journal of his time as a trapper........................

I have attached 50 pages of his 154 page tomb that describe the herds of Buffalo, Pronghorn, Elk, Bighorn Sheep and Deer that he witnessed first hand over his 20 years as a Rocky Mountain trapper................Mention of Wolves, Cougars and Wolverines are also highlighted for your review and delight.

One of the joys that I derive from publishing this blog....................investigating and exploring vicariously the first hand accounts of Early Americas Predators and Prey......................Osborne was a student of the early West and it's inhabitants...............Soak his writings in as I have!--BLOGGER RICK

click here to read JOURNAL OF A TRAPPER--OSBORNE RUSSELL 

Scotti Cohn is a prolific writer and has multiple books in print targeted for children on topics ranging from Wolves to Cougars to the Revolutionary War.............Continued good luck to you Scott!!!

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Rick Meril <rick.meril@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Sep 26, 2010 at 6:11 PM
Subject: Re: Coyotes, Wolves, Cougars...
To: Scotti Cohn <sm_cohn@hotmail.com>


Scotti................thanks for your kind words............I will check out your site tonight.....................and Post your email so that readers can do the same and buy your book(s)..................Let me know if there is anything else you would like posted and definitely update me when your BIG CAT book gets published in March 2011

On Sun, Sep 26, 2010 at 10:16 AM, Scotti Cohn <sm_cohn@hotmail.com> wrote:

Hello Rick,

I came across your blog Coyotes, Wolves, Cougars...Forever! I love it! I subscribed so that I will receive updates when you publish them.

My children's picture book One Wolf Howls was published in March 2009 by Sylvan Dell Publishing. My second picture book -- Big Cat, Little Kitty -- will be published by Sylvan Dell in March 2011. The second book explores the similarities and differences between the "big cats" and domestic "kitties." There is a cougar in the book. As you will see if you visit Sylvan Dell's web site, they publish entertaining, educational books for children with an emphasis on math and science, including caring for the planet and learning about the natural world.

I thought you might also be interested in my blog: Wolf and Cat. In the blog, I basically just share stories I come across about (mostly) big cats and wolves.

Here's to the canines and felines! Long may they prosper.

Sincerely,

(Ms.) Scotti Cohn
http://www.scotticohn.com/

Author of:
- One Wolf Howls (Sylvan Dell / 2009)
- It Happened in Chicago (Globe Pequot Press / 2009)
- It Happened in North Carolina (Second Edition, Globe Pequot Press, 2009)
- Liberty's Children:Stories of Eleven Revolutionary War Children (Globe)
- Beyond Their Years:Stories of Sixteen Civil War Children (Globe)
- More than Petticoats: Remarkable North Carolina Women (Globe)
- Disasters and Heroic Rescues of North Carolina (Globe)
- Illinois: Mapping The Prairie State through History (Globe / Fall 2010)
- Chicago Curiosities (Globe / January 2011)
- Big Cat, Little Kitty (Sylvan Dell / Spring 2011)